n Sept. 11, 2001, lives were forever
altered when terrorists crashed two hijacked airplanes into the World Trade
Center, casting a wave of shock and
mourning across America.
“I wanted to go to my daycare and pick up my
kids [when I heard about the World Trade Center being hit],” English teacher Elizabeth Miller said.
The official death toll from Sept. 11 is now
2,753, since one more victim has been added to the
list, Jerry Berg. At aged 63, he died from lung complications this year as a result of inhaling debris from the
collapse of the towers. The disastrous effects of that
day still affect people a decade later.
The world found out early that morning that
the first plane hit the North Tower, and a fire erupted from the impact resulting into explosions. Soon
people were in a frenzy of disbelief, and that is when
photojournalism teacher, Cary Conover, who lived in
New York on 9/11, grabbed his camera and ventured
out into the streets.
“My first reaction was I want to get this; I don’t
want to miss this. I want to capture all of this, and I almost did miss the second tower getting hit,” Conover
said.
Around 8:45 a.m., the first plane crashed between the 93rd and 99th floors killing everyone on
board and inside the building. Emergency services
immediately responded and were dispatched to
the World Trade Centers. A neighbor came and told
Conover about the attack so he ran onto the roof of
his building and starting shooting catching the second hit on his film.
“Other teachers asked me to explain the full
scale of the tragedy they were watching. It was one of
the hardest moment of my career because it was hard
to explain and comprehend it myself,” social studies
teacher Joel Schaefer said.
At 9:03 a.m. the South Tower was hit by another
hijacked plane between the 77th and 85th floors,
again killing everyone on board. This time though
the plane had nose-dived into the South Tower losing
altitude at a rate of roughly 5,000 feet per minute.
People that were in shock already stood in complete
disbelief wondering if this could be actually happening on American soil.
A third plane was reported hijacked and soon
crashed into the Pentagon and killed 39 on board
and 125 in the Pentagon, 106 severely injured in the

Photojournalism
teacher Cary
Conover was
living in New
York and
working as a
photographer
when the
Twin Towers
were hit and
he captured
the tragedy
through his
camera.
Photo by
Jacob
Highfill

resulting fire around 9:37 a.m. This latest attacked
called for a Nationwide Ground Stop at 9:42 a.m.,
where planes were grounded from flying over or
bound to the United States.
“I think about it [Sept. 11] all the time. I wouldn’t
say I’m scarred, but that day is definitely burned into
my memory,” Conover said.
Another flight, United Airlines Flight 93, got
word out that they had been hijacked as well. Learning about the attacks on the World Trade Center, it is
thought that these brave passengers voted to try to
fight back and gain control of the plane again. It is believed that the hijackers crashed the flight in order to
prevent the passengers from winning back Flight 93.
The surreal events continued when, at 9:59 a.m.,
the South Tower collapsed, killing 600 people in and
around the building in the 10 seconds it took the
Tower to fall.
“It just seemed a pivotal event that you should be
with your family and friends for,” Miller said.
Barely five minutes later, Flight 93’s crash was
reported in a field outside of Somerset County, Pennsylvania. The site of the crash was roughly a 20 minute
flight away from Washington D.C. The last flight did
not reach its target, thought to be the White House or

Capitol Building.
“That day was so bizarre. So many stories were
being put out because it was real time coverage and
you had to watch it the full day to understand what
was actually happening, it almost felt like a day of
rumors, but when you heard about the people who
fought back, you were really impressed,” social studies teacher Seth Anderson said.
As the day progressed, rescuers located a few
lucky souls were able to walk away with their lives
and went home. Due to the damage to the lower
Manhattan’s waterlines had been compromised, preventing FDNY could not get water to the flames and
the World Trade Center Build 7 collapsed at 5:20, after burning for hours. Thankfully no one had been
in the building due to an evacuation earlier that day.
“There was that structural absence of the
Twin Towers, which hurt. I loved looking at them,”
Conover said.
At 8:30 that night, President Bush addressed the
nation and made a statement in his speech: “These
acts of mass murder were intended to frighten our
nation into chaos and retreat. But they have failed.
Our country is strong. A great people has been moved

alexHERNANDEZ

trojan

TALK

Where were you when you
found out about 9/11?

“Kindergarten classroom. I came home,
and my mom was
freaked out.”
{kaleyHALLMARK,9}

“I was outside raking
leaves, and my dad
yelled at me to get inside because he didn’t
know what was going
on.”
{maddieROUTHIER,10}

“I was in first grade “I was outside playing
at school and didn’t with the neighbor kids
know until I got home.” and came in, and my
dad was staring at the
TV in a daze.”
{lincolnBLIZZARD,11}
{alexGROMMET,12}

15

All pages:

1

PAGE 15

Published on Sep 12, 2011

Where were you when you found out about 9/11? alexHERNANDEZ {lincolnBLIZZARD,11} {kaleyHALLMARK,9} {maddieROUTHIER,10} {alexGROMMET,12} Phot...